In part 2 of the journey, we saw how Einstein's equation, E = mc2 explains the creation of matter from energy, the relics of cosmic microwave background observed by Arno Penzias and Robert W. Wilson and the expansion observed by Edwin Hubble.
Surely, science arrived at the site of creation, yet instead of continuing the journey it is returning. Why should science retreat at the site of the singularity? Well it is a mystery melting away our models and theories as overwhelmingly inadequate and completely incapable to look inside it let alone go beyond it. There is no point in denial. For now, it is simply impenetrable and undecipherable.
In sum, the safer side then is to retreat mindful of the maxim "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" than engage in baseless speculations and superstitions as others do. Therefore, let us return from the unobservable world of elementary particles to the observable world of macroscopic matter we know today via quantum mechanics. Science will be back someday at the site again.
QUANTUM MECHANICS
Quantum mechanics, QM is the world of the smallest, bizarre and unobservable. Yet, its instrumentality leading to the explosion in technological applications guarantees that science has a light to illuminating the fuzzy world of elementary particles. It is the very foundation of our current information society. Our society rides on radios, television, computers, cell phones, and the almighty internet, all working on QM principles underlying transistors. Accordingly, again, what might sound stupid as science struggles to describe the actual site and moment of creation is not necessarily so at all.
The pure energy field of the vanishingly smallest imaginable point expands to form elementary particles in the process. These extremely unimaginably smallest elementary particles are the leptons and quarks constituting the Fermions as well as their antimatter particles. The lepton such as electron and neutrino do not partake in holding together the nucleus whereas the quarks such as proton and neutron do partake in holding the nucleus together.
The antimatter particles have the same mass but opposite charges as the Fermions. When matter-antimatter particles such as electron and positron or proton and antiproton collide, they annihilate each other to produce energy in accordance with Einstein's equation. Antimatter particles are not that far away from you at all. The Positron Emission Tomography (PET) machine used in scanning or imaging the brain in action, especially in hospitals is an indispensable technological testimony to the existence of antimatter as the name shows.
The reverse equally happens as witnessed routinely in the particle accelerators. Therefore, it is imaginable that similar process went on in the earliest moments during the expansion of the singularity. Together, both leptons and quarks constituting the Fermions form the atoms of the ordinary Matter, starting with the lightest. These explain the abundance of helium and hydrogen as the two lightest elements in the Universe.
This also means that the outward expansion moves from disorganized into organized state or from chaos to order in most localized cases as matter is been formed with time. This continual self-organization in the course of the expansion will eventually form stars, solar systems, galaxies as mammoth structures all over through the principal attractive force of gravity. Some of these stars using up all their fuels will later decay, producing and pouring out heavy elements such as oxygen, carbon, and iron among others formed in their cores via the operative forces.
THE OPERATIONAL FORCES OF THE UNIVERSE
We have so far been on the journey to the site of creation as if there were no operational forces on the way. According to the Standard Model, force is an exchange of particles called Bosons and there are four of them. The bosons for the four fundamental forces are photons for electromagnetic force, gravitons for gravitational force, and gluons for strong force as well as weak bosons for weak force. With the exception of gravitons, the rest were observed.
Electromagnetic force is both attractive and repulsive whereas gravitational force is only attractive even as they both obey the inverse-square law (remember Newton's gravitational law and Coulomb's law). All the forces act concurrently but with differing strengths, hence each dominates at different sizes. The order of increasing strength in the nucleus for instance is Gravity < Electromagnetic < Weak < Strong force. Beyond the nucleus, the order of increasing strength is Strong < Weak < Electromagnetic < Gravity.
The above order is pregnant with implications. With the exception of hydrogen atom with one proton in its nucleus and experiencing no repulsion, the nucleus of the other atoms containing positively charged protons are experiencing the repulsive aspect of the electromagnetic force as like charges repel one another. Repulsion in the nucleus means they should be flying apart, and as such, no atom beyond hydrogen ought to exist.
That also means no atom no molecule, no molecule no compound, no compound no cells, no cells no tissues, no tissues no organs, and then no organs no organisms of which you and I are part of the millions of species inhabiting the Earth. Yet, we exist. This means there is a force strong enough to overcome the repulsive force of the positively charged protons in the nucleus of the atoms beyond hydrogen. This for is the strong force acting within the nucleus. In other words, everything made of matter exist because the strong force made the existence of the atom possible.
Essentially, the strong force underpins nuclear chemistry, the weak force atomic chemistry and the electromagnetic force is the foundation of molecular chemistry. These three forces define the immanent physicochemical environment conducive for biology. The gravitational force is the weakest of all the forces. This is why even though it is always attractive you are not bumping into objects and people around. Nevertheless, paradoxically it dominates on larger scales of bigger sized matter. This is because unlike electromagnetic force that depends on the charges, gravitational force depends on only the mass of matter.
As the mass of bigger-sized matter increases, the cumulative charges mostly balance out. This makes gravitational force the eventual dominant force on the scale of bigger sized matter as strong and weak force are restricted to the nucleus. Gravity acting through the larger scale bigger sized matter has the capacity to distort the structure of space. It then becomes the curvature of space as it keeps massive heavenly bodies in their orbits in the continuing expansion.
Meanwhile, the theories and models illuminating the fundamentally unobservable world of the singularity hint that these four forces were likely to be different facets of single force that split off during the expansion. At least, the unification of weak and electromagnetic force into one force called electroweak force, operating at extremely high temperature in the earliest moments of creation is a confirmation of that insight. A theory capable of unifying relativity and quantum mechanics, of which the leading candidates are string theory, quantum gravity, super-gravity or super-symmetry, when finally done will reveal the unity of all the four forces at the site of singularity in principle.
AGE OF THE UNIVERSE
Our idea of event is rooted in time. An event occurs at a place at a time. Given that that is our everyday and philosophical background to time, when science traced the universe to the singularity point, we realize that time and space dissolved into the nothingness. There was no space and no time. All was void.
This means the singularity, the seemingly void that concealed the Universe brought forth space and time during its expansion. The expansion gives meaning to time and space, not the opposite. If that is the case, what does it mean to say that the Universe "begun" about 15 billion years ago?
First, let us be clear that there had never been an observation of entire Universe itself and, will probably never be. Even the site of creation as envisaged via the singularity mathematical model remains a black box for scientists. Only the edge is somehow accessible. As such, scientists always refer to the Observable Universe as attainable through the most powerful instruments and further models and theories yet.
Meanwhile it would interest you to know that cosmology without particle physics to simulate the earliest moments of creation in particle accelerators is more or less archeology. Like archeologists digging out the earth for the remnants or fossils of living organisms and ancient artifacts, cosmologists do so in the heavens via instruments.
They scanned the heavens for fossils of exploded and exploding ancient stars and supernovas that fill the Universe with the brightest light ever in its subsequent evolution during the expansion. In cosmology, light is a message from anywhere in the cosmos. Looking into the heavens for these lights is like looking into the past.
This means it is possible that, there are fossils of light even few moments into the expanding singularity itself that has not reached us or not been detected by our instruments yet. Therefore, to say that the Universe is about 15 billion years old is like saying the farthest light as fossil remnants cosmologists could see with their most powerful available ground or space based telescope is that far away in spacetime, hence time.
CONCLUSION
Here ends the attempt to tell the creation story of our generation. Robert Oppenheimer once said that, let no one who enters our libraries knows the little we know. This is the very little we know with the uncertainty that characterize the fact filled scientific knowledge, yet instrumental in technological implications and applications for furtherance of the statistical betterment of the human condition in the mist of the indifferent forces and laws of Nature.
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